[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 27 (Friday, February 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2436-S2438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          THE BUDGET AND THE CHALLENGE OF CONTROLLING DEFICITS

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, to put this debate on the budget 
situation in context, I hope that we will keep in mind the difficulty 
that Congress has had over the years, and each administration in recent 
years, in trying to cope with this very, very difficult challenge of 
controlling deficits.
  In 1960, for example, interest payments on our national debt amounted 
to 6 percent of the Federal budget. Today, that figure has grown to 16 
percent. That is the percentage of the total expenditures that will be 
required to be appropriated and paid in interest on the current debt in 
the next fiscal year, according to the President's budget.
  Last year, the Federal Government paid a total of $203 billion in 
interest on the existing debt. The budget just submitted by the 
President calls for spending $257 billion in the next fiscal year on 
interest on the accumulated debt.
  By comparison, Senators might be interested to know that if these 
interest costs are as they are projected to be next year by the 
President's budget, we will spend just about as much on interest 
payments as we will on national defense.
  The national defense dollars that are requested by the President to 
be appropriated for our Nation's security next year are at $262 billion 
in the President's budget; the interest payments, $257 billion, a $5 
billion difference. In a $1.6 trillion budget, the percentage is about 
the same, 16 percent.
  It seems to me that to believe we are going to be able to meet this 
challenge of controlling deficits more effectively without some 
requirement to do so or some new procedures in place such as this 
constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget is a triumph of 
hope over experience.
  One item that I received in my mail this week from a constituent was 
very interesting from a historical perspective. Andy Halbrook is a 
resident of Greenville, MS. His father, David Halbrook, has been a 
member of our State legislature for a number of years and one of our 
important influences in State government. He sent me a Reader's Digest 
article of July 1979 which talked about the origin of the movement for 
State legislators to petition the Government for a constitutional 
convention to require a balanced budget.
  I am going to read the first paragraph and put the rest of it in the 
Record with this letter for the information of Senators.

       In Ollie Mohamed's Belzoni, Miss., department store--

  Ollie Mohamed was a State Senator at the time--

     a group was discussing Federal spending, inflation and 
     Congress's perennial inability to balance the budget. State 
     legislator David Halbrook spoke of his new grandchild: ``That 
     baby is going to have to pay for the things I'm enjoying. It 
     ought to be the other way around. I ought to leave the world 
     a little better for him.''

  This article goes on to talk about the conversation that then led to, 
well, what are we going to do about it? And one of them got the 
Constitution down and read here where it is provided the State 
legislatures can petition the Congress to convene a constitutional 
convention to amend the Constitution, and they decided that it ought to 
be done. And so David Halbrook led the effort in the Mississippi 
legislature to have that resolution passed. Then some other States got 
involved. The National Taxpayers Union got involved. And according to 
this article, over a period of years they almost reached the point 
where they were successful. They were four States short at the time 
this article was written in 1979.
  Andrew--``Andy''--Halbrook, David's son, suggests that we ought to 
name this legislation the ``David Halbrook Act,'' requiring the 
Congress to balance the budget as a matter of constitutional amendment. 
I think it is a good suggestion.
  I ask unanimous consent that Andy Halbrook's letter be printed in the 
Record, along with the article from the Reader's Digest.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                                               Greenville, MS,

                                                 February 2, 1995.
     Hon. Thad Cochran,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Cochran: The balanced budget amendment is one 
     of the most important pieces of legislation that will be 
     considered in my lifetime and possibly in the lifetime of my 
     children. It will have a much tougher row to hoe in the 
     Senate than in the House. In light of this I would like to 
     offer a suggestion that could perhaps significantly help to 
     assure its passage.
       In positioning for public approval, acceptance and support 
     a product or a service or even a piece of legislation, 
     perception is reality. Unless the populace can be 
     overwhelmingly convinced to support something as broad-
     ranging as the balanced budget amendment it may be doomed to 
     failure no matter how good its attributes. The way to get the 
     popular support needed to be indomitably successful in this 
     venture is to personalize it and to make everyone realize 
     this is a grass-roots idea from outside the beltway. In light 
     of this please consider the following:
       The balanced budget amendment was spawned in Belzoni, 
     Mississippi by my father, Rep. David Halbrook and former 
     Senator Ollie Mohamed. Please see the attached Reader's 
     Digest article in testimony to this fact.
       Due to his continuity of service in the Mississippi 
     Legislature and active leadership roles in the American 
     Legislative Exchange Council, the National Conference of 
     State Legislators, the Southern Legislative Conference and 
     other organizations, David Halbrook has been the torch-bearer 
     for this idea since its inception.
       Based on these facts I am asking that you consider naming 
     the balanced budget amendment ``The Halbrook Amendment''. 
     This will do many things to accelerate and maintain the 
     momentum of this legislation.
       [[Page S2437]] David Halbrook is a life-long Democrat. 
     Putting his name on this amendment could greatly enhance 
     bipartisan support of this endeavor.
       David Halbrook is a common man with uncommon talents and 
     ideas, a business man, a farmer and a father concerned about 
     his children's and grandchildren's future. The mainstream 
     will immediately identify with him and his purpose for 
     starting this process.
       By putting a name and a face with something that can be as 
     nebulous to the common man as a piece of federal legislation, 
     such as was done with the Brady Bill, the public's perception 
     of the process at hand can be immediately transformed into a 
     tidal wave of support.
       David Halbrook is a life-long Mississippian. Mississippi is 
     in the midst of one of the most dynamic economic growth 
     cycles in the nation. These factors could be coupled when 
     titling this legislation the Halbrook Amendment to bring 
     recognition to your leadership in bringing Mississippi to its 
     current status as a good place to do business.
       Finally, David Halbrook deserves this honor. He personally 
     laid much of the groundwork for what is being debated today 
     on Capitol Hill. I well remember his many trips to testify 
     before one state legislative assembly after another in order 
     to get them to put forth the call for a constitutional 
     convention to take up this matter. As a seven term Democrat 
     he is the senior member of the Mississippi House of 
     Representatives. This adds credibility to his commonality. 
     Most importantly, he is a loving and devoted father that has 
     always tried to do the right thing by making this world a 
     better place for his children along with everyone else.
       In closing, I am requesting this not only because I have 
     been taught to ``honor thy father and thy mother'', but I 
     have also been taught to do the right thing. In my opinion, a 
     balanced budget amendment is the right thing to do, and by 
     personalizing this piece of legislation, its chances of 
     passage will be greatly enhanced. I appreciate your 
     consideration of my request and ideas.
           Sincerely,


                                  Andrew L. ``Andy'' Halbrook,

     Concerned Constituent.
                                                                    ____

                 [From the Reader's Digest, July 1979]

           A Constitutional Amendment To Balance the Budget?

                         (By Eugene H. Methvin)

       In Ollie Mohamed's Belzoni, Miss., department store, a 
     group was discussing federal spending, inflation and 
     Congress's perennial inability to balance the budget. State 
     legislator David Halbrook spoke of his new grandchild: ``That 
     baby is going to have to pay for the things I'm enjoying. It 
     ought to be the other way around. I ought to leave the world 
     a little better for him.''
       That gave Mohamed, a former legislator, an idea. He found a 
     copy of the Constitution and began to read from Article V: 
     ``The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem 
     it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, 
     or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of 
     the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing 
     Amendments, which, in either Case shall be valid * * * when 
     ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several 
     States. * * *''
       That day in 1974, a national crusade was born to compel 
     Congress by constitutional amendment to balance the federal 
     budget. (An exception would occur in national emergencies, 
     when both houses could agree by two-thirds vote to permit 
     deficit spending.) A few months later, Representative 
     Halbrook got the Mississippi state legislature to pass a 
     resolution calling for a constitutional convention. Acting 
     independently, lawmakers in Maryland, Delaware and North 
     Dakota passed similar resolutions. The National Taxpayers
      Union, a feisty new citizens' lobby, took up the cause, and 
     by April 1979 convention-call resolutions had been passed 
     by 30 states. If four more act, Congress will be required 
     to call a constitutional convention.
       The pressure is growing. CBS and the New York Times 
     interviewed voters last November and found that 82 percent of 
     Democrats and 86 percent of Republicans favor a balanced-
     budget amendment. Five Presidential contenders (Republicans 
     Reagan, Connally, Dole, Baker and Democrat Brown) have 
     endorsed it. Observed Oregon senate president Jason Boe, 
     ``This thing is coming like a 100-car freight train at 
     Congress, and they haven't done a thing about it.''
       The realization that the budget-balancers are only four 
     states away from a constitutional convention has startled and 
     disturbed many Washington politicians. Senate Budget 
     Committee Chairman Edmund Muskie (D., Maine) growled that if 
     state legislators continued their rebellion, Congress might 
     balance the budget by cutting the $83 billion in grants and 
     revenue sharing it gives states and localities. House Speaker 
     Tip O'Neill's son Thomas, the Massachusetts lieutenant 
     governor, took the lead in organizing an anti-amendment 
     coalition of the special-interest groups that benefit most 
     from deficit spending, including the AFL-CIO, the National 
     Education Association and other public employee unions. 
     President Carter assailed the proposition as ``political 
     gimmickry'' and formed a White House task force to lobby 
     state legislators.
       Washington mobilization had effect. The Montana senate 
     bowed to lobbying efforts and in March defeated an amendment 
     resolution. And the Administration has promised an all-out 
     fight in each of the 15 state legislatures that have yet to 
     act.
       Clearly, the battle lines are drawn between the Washington 
     establishment and a disillusioned grassroots groundswell. 
     Never before in the nation's history has so widespread a 
     movement for constitutional change developed over such 
     fundamental
      issues as the proper size of government and the way our 
     elected representatives wield the powers to tax and spend. 
     If the convention drive succeeds, says The Wall Street 
     Journal the people would be saying that they have finally 
     decided Congress can't be trusted with their money.''
       Few even on Capitol Hill dispute that there is genuine 
     ground for wondering these days. Between 1946 and 1961, 
     Congress managed seven deficits and seven surpluses, with an 
     overall approximate balance--and low inflation. But in the 19 
     years since, Congress has balanced the budget only once, in 
     1919, and the net deficit over those years has been a 
     aggering $377 billion. Washington has continued the deficits 
     in boom times as well as bust. This year, President Carter 
     offered a 1980 budget with a $29 billion deficit--plus $12 
     billion more in ``off budget items--and called it 
     ``austere.''
       Two decades of Congressional and White House profligacy 
     have helped produce severe inflation that threatens to halve 
     the value of every dollar in five and a half years. Obvious 
     victims include the poor and the elderly, but in the end, 
     everybody suffers. The average family last year paid almost 
     $800 interest on past government deficits, and inflation 
     robbed another $800 from its purchasing power.
       In 1976, running against the Washington establishment, 
     candidate Jimmy Carter promised to balance the budget by 
     1979. Now that President Carter has proffered a $29 billion 
     deficit, the public is turning to the constitutional 
     amendment as a solution. The Associated Press found in a poll 
     last February that ``distrust of policitians is so deep that 
     Americans do not believe their elected officials will act. 
     Seventy percent said politicians will not work to wipe out 
     the deficit.''
       Even without a constitutional convention, the budget-
     balancers may get what they want. State legislatures have 
     used the convention call in the past to lever balky 
     Congresses into proposing needed amendments. In fact, no 
     amendment has ever come
      directly from the convention approach. State convention 
     calls have helped prompt Congress to submit amendments to 
     provide for direct election of Senators, repeal 
     Prohibition, limit a President to two terms and provide 
     for Presidential succession in case of disability.
       In this session of Congress, 203 Representatives and 39 
     Senators support a wide variety of amendment proposals which 
     they want Congress to submit directly to the states, 
     circumventing a convention call. (Three-fourths of the state 
     legislature, 38, are required to ratify an amendment.) One 
     group would require a ``super-majority'' of either two-thirds 
     or three-fourths of the members of Congress, in an emergency 
     such as war or deep depression, to vote for a deficit budget. 
     Otherwise, the legislators would have to match outlays with 
     revenues. If revenues fell short, Congress would have to 
     slash spending or impose a surtax. Knowing they would have to 
     go on record in favor of higher taxes, the legislators would 
     be certain to look harder at some of their spending ideas.
       Another proposal has come from Senators Richard Stone (D., 
     Fla.) and H. John Heinz (R., Pa.). Their amendment, drafted 
     by a group including Novel Prize-winning economist Milton 
     Friedman, would limit federal spending increases to the 
     growth in the Gross National Product. If inflation is greater 
     than three percent, the proposal would impose an even tighter 
     limit on spending.
       President Carter and Democratic leaders in Congress protest 
     that any constitutional amendment would ``tie the hands'' of 
     the nation in time of crisis, since a determined minority of 
     either house could block needed appropriations. Proponents 
     respond that a stubborn minority blocking obviously needed 
     action would be swiftly punished at the polls. Congress could 
     still act by majority vote in an emergency by levying taxes 
     to finance needed spending; a minority could only block 
     deficit spending.
       Whatever the outcome of these proposed amendments, and the 
     call for a constitutional convention, the balance-the-budget 
     movement has triggered a mighty debate. Says the National 
     Taxpayers Union's Jim Davidson: ``As people see their real 
     spending power decline, this issue will not fade away.'' Adds 
     Sen. Gary Hart (D., Colo.), ``It's a sorry state of affairs 
     when the American people are demanding a constitutional 
     convention because they don't trust us, and Congress is 
     saying, `No, you can't have one because we don't trust 
     you.'''
       This contentious scene would not faze the men who wrote the 
     Constitution, for the debate has focused public attention 
     once again on some eternal verities about public power, its 
     exercise, abuse and safeguards. What healthier way for 
     Americans to celebrate the approaching 200th birthday of 
     their Constitution.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. What is the order of business we are in at this time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning business.
 [[Page S2438]] MOVEMENT TO A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BALANCE THE 
                                 BUDGET

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I appreciate what the Senator from 
Mississippi has just spoken of, the issue of the State legislator 
beginning the movement to petition Congress.
  When I was a State senator in Idaho in the 1970's, I became involved 
in that very movement and actually brought a resolution before the 
State senate, and it passed the Idaho Legislature, to petition Congress 
for a balanced budget amendment because clearly at that time, at the 
State legislative level, as we were looking at what the Congress of the 
United States was doing and what the Federal Government was doing, we 
were growing increasingly fearful that debt would continue to mount and 
power of the Government at the central level in Washington would 
continue to grow, and it would, if you will, deny or weaken the ability 
of State legislatures and State governments to act responsibly.
  When I then came to Congress in 1980 and started serving in 1981, 
that movement was well underway. And as the Senator from Mississippi 
has just mentioned, we were at that time four States short of the 
necessary requirements under article V of the Constitution from 
petitioning and therefore forcing the Congress to bring forth a 
resolution convening a constitutional convention.
  Citizens across the country, though, at that time grew increasingly 
fearful of a constitutional convention, as to whether you could limit 
it to a single issue like a balanced budget amendment, and that if you 
opened up a constitutional convention and Congress in essence handed 
the power to craft a constitutional amendment to an autonomous body, we 
might see other issues come forth that many of us would not like.
  So that movement stalled out at about a remaining two States and it 
began to back off. Congresswoman Barbara Conable of New York at that 
time was a leader. I became a leader involved and traveled around to 
the States encouraging them to continue to do so, not because I wanted 
a constitutional convention but because I thought it was terribly 
important we show that the second portion of article V of the 
Constitution remains a viable power inside the Constitution but that 
the alternative--and that is the first portion of article V--would be 
that Congress can propose amendments to the citizens on the 
Constitution and that we were in essence the always-standing, always-
in-power constitutional convention, that at any time with the necessary 
supermajority vote, the Congress itself could bring forth an amendment 
to be ratified by the States.
  I say to the Senator from Mississippi, as he well knows, that is 
exactly what we are doing at this time, and that is why some of us have 
worked as long as we have to assure that this process go forward and 
why we are so concerned today we do not put anything in the path of 
this amendment that could trip it up in what is, I believe, a 
constitutional responsibility on our part to provide a clean, simply 
directed amendment to the people.
  We have seen an amendment--and thank goodness just this week the 
Senate has denied it--that would have said prior to sending forth an 
amendment we have to do the following things. That is not what article 
V says. It says you put forth an amendment and it goes straight to the 
States because we can only propose. It is the States that have the 
responsibility, or in essence the citizens themselves, to ratify an 
amendment because the Constitution as the organic law of our land is 
the people's law. We operate under it.
  That is why we are here today and will be for the next week or so 
debating a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution because it is 
the adjusting, if you will, of the organic law of our land that governs 
us, that governs the central government, that controls the Congress of 
the United States, and it is the ability of the people to speak up. So 
what we are doing here is extending or offering to the people of this 
country the opportunity to speak on the issue of how the Federal 
Government manages its fiscal house and its budget. And I wish to thank 
the Senator from Mississippi for recognizing as he has that on all of 
these kinds of issues they really begin at the grassroots. It is the 
people at the very lowest level of our governments stepping forward and 
saying we believe the central government ought to change; it is doing 
things in an improper way, and the way we will change them is to adjust 
the Constitution of our country to cause them to act differently.
  That was back in the 1970's, and it has taken now over two decades to 
bring forth this issue to the point where it has now passed the House 
of Representatives and we are within weeks of voting on it here with a 
strong likelihood that it can pass the Congress of the United States 
and pass the Senate and it will go forth to the people. So those 
citizens of Mississippi, through their State legislators, will have an 
opportunity to decide how the central government of our country ought 
to be run in the area of its fiscal responsibilities and matters.

                          ____________________